Three Memories
by JennieMac
Summary: Harry’s coming of age gift...from his mother. HBP spoilers.


JK Rowling owns everything, and I own nothing! Nothing! Bangs head on piano keys No copyright infringement is intended. -JM

"Just watch them, if you want to," Lupin had said, pressing the tiny glowing bottle into Harry's hands. "You have the Pensieve, now. Three memories. Your mother wanted you to have them, when you were old enough."

Harry stared at the bottle in his hand, the silvery memories swirling behind the glass. Just watch them, he thought. Easy for Lupin to say. Dumbledore had left Harry the Pensieve, true, and he was of age now, but he didn't know yet if he wanted to use it. He didn't know if he could bear it, knowing that these were his mother's memories.

And yet, after all the guests had left 12 Grimmauld Place--it had been a rather subdued coming-of-age party--and the Weasleys and Hermione had gone up to bed, Harry found himself creeping back down to the kitchen and pouring all three glowing, silvery memories into the Pensieve, found himself leaning down into the basin and touching his nose to the iridescent surface, found himself somersaulting down into the cold void of the Pensieve once again, knowing that, most probably, it would bring him nothing but sorrow.

Harry slowly righted himself; his feet settled on soft grass and he was momentarily blinded by a brilliantly orange setting sun, which had not quite dipped below the jagged mountains on the horizon. Where was he? Squinting and shading his eyes, he glanced around: evergreen hedges and windswept grass. Behind him, stone walls and turrets, a flight of stone steps leading to...

His heart gave a pang and he turned away. He was standing just outside the entrance hall of Hogwarts Castle, and it was just a memory to him now, as well. And walking away from him across the grounds, walking into a glorious pink-and-gold sunset, was a young girl with long, dark red hair. She was dressed in black Hogwarts robes, which billowed all around her in the high wind and whipped her heavy hair into a frenzy. Harry could not feel the wind, although it bent the trees around him, and he couldn't feel his feet on the soft grass as he faltered forward toward his mother. Lily.

She walked slowly, meandering here and there across the broad lawn as if lost in her own thoughts, bending once in a while to pick a flower out of the grass. Harry could barely see the tiny, star-shaped white flowers in the thick grass and clover covering the Hogwarts grounds, but the red-haired girl could apparently see every one. She was quickly gathering a handful of them.

Harry took off running--still not able to feel his feet connecting with the ground--and quickly caught her up. His sixteen-year-old mother was squinting thoughtfully into the western sky as she walked, pausing now and then to pick up a flower; when she bent down, she'd tuck her heavy hair behind her ears, but a few strands would escape, caught by the wind, and fall across her face. Harry recognized those ears, with a sudden jolt, as his own.

The eyes were his, too. Large, green and clear. Lily wore a small smile as she walked; watching her, Harry couldn't help but smile, too. It was contagious.

"Oi, Evans!"

The voice was loud and strident: clearly audible even in the high wind. Harry's heart gave another jolt. He saw Lily frown and halt in her tracks, but she did not turn, as Harry did, to look at the boy who had called to her--a tallish, lean boy with messy black hair and round glasses. He was trotting down the castle steps toward them. Harry had been prepared for this from the beginning, but it still came as a shock to see his father striding across the grass toward Lily, who stood with her back to him.

James slowed as he approached her. His brow creased and he ran a hand through his messy hair, which hung longer than Harry's had ever been and looked like the bottom of a mop. He looked very much like Harry, but his face wore a haughty, appraising expression Harry was sure he himself could never have mustered, and James's mouth seemed twisted into the almost-sneering smile of a person who is about to tease, and is going to enjoy doing so. "All right, Evans?" he said.

Lily turned slowly on the spot, her mouth pulling into a tight, forced smile. "Potter," she said. "To what do I owe this unexpected...pleasure." Her voice was low and soft, and could have been very pleasant, but it was utterly apparent to Harry that talking to James was no pleasure to her.

James, it seemed, sensed the same thing. The teasing expression fell from his face, and the wistful, slightly hurt look which took its place looked more than ever like Harry. "Aw, don't be like that, Evans," he said.

"What do you want?" said Lily. Her face was stony.

"I want to talk to you." James took a step closer to her, and Lily took a step backward, eyebrows raised, a challenging expression on her face. "Aw, come on," he pleaded.

"How do I know you're not going to hex me?"

James held up his hands, palms upward, as if to show he was unarmed. "Why would I do that?"

Lily narrowed her eyes. "You had no problem doing it to Snape the other day. In front of the whole school."

James rolled his eyes and his body sagged. "You're mad about that? Oh come on, Evans. The git deserved it."

"He was just sitting there."

James took another step toward her. "And how many times has he insulted you? How many times has he called you...you know." He shuffled his feet, his hands stuffed into his pockets. "Tell me you weren't just a little bit happy to see him hanging upside down by his ankles with his head in a soup bowl."

"I wasn't even a little bit happy." Lily now took a step toward him, and James backed off, his eyes widening. "It's none of your business what anyone calls me. It's not your job to police the school. It's nothing to do with you, what that little...person says. If I choose to ignore him rather than rising to his bait, it's not your job to step in. You have no right." Her voice was low and tense and her eyes were flashing; silhouetted against the sun, her slight figure was somehow imposing, even frightening.

James sensed it, too; he did not look even a bit haughty, now. "I got detention for it," he said.

"I'm not surprised. If it had been up to me, you'd have got worse than that." Lily shook her head at him, her hair catching the wind again and falling down to partially shadow one eye. "No matter what you say, Potter...you'll never change." Harry could not read her expression, but her voice was softer now, and her eyes might have contained a hint of pity. She turned away from James, frowning.

James looked after her with an expression Harry completely recognized: it was the same look he'd worn as he walked away from Ginny after Dumbledore's funeral. It was the look of someone who has just lost the one thing his heart desired. Harry, too, felt a surge of pity for James as he watched Lily walk away. "Oh, go on," he murmured to his father. "Go after her."

James swallowed hard, then, with a pained look on his face, called out after Lily. "I can try."

Lily stopped walking, but did not turn around. "You can try what?" she asked, not raising her voice.

James took his hands from his pockets and held them out to her, palms upward, as before. "I can try to change. For...for you." He cleared his throat. "You...you make me want to be better."

Harry glanced at Lily; it may have been his imagination, but he thought her face had gone slightly pink. She turned, pushing her hair behind her ear again. She looked James in the eye, in a way that made his face burn, too. "I don't want you to be better," she said. "I just want you to be who you really are."

James nodded, his eyes not leaving hers. There was a silence between them, a silence during which Harry could hear nothing but the breeze through the evergreen hedges and the beating of his own heart. Lily looked at James like she was peering through him, to his very soul. Finally she spoke again. "You hide from people. You put on a mask, and hide your heart behind it. You pretend you're tough. You pretend you're confident, that you have a thick skin and no one can touch you. And nearly everyone is fooled. But not me."

James opened his mouth, frowning, then closed it again. They regarded one another for a few moments, then James tried again. "Evans...I can try. Please." He shrugged his shoulders. "Just give me a chance to try."

To many, Lily's expression would have appeared to be just as stony and unyielding as ever. Harry, though, recognized that she was still blushing, and that one corner of her mouth was tugging upward. Her large green eyes softened. James blinked once or twice, as if coming out of a trance.

"I know how you can start," Lily said softly.

"What?" said James.

"You can call me by my proper name." James peered at her in surprise, and Lily smiled. "You've always called me 'Evans,' like I'm one of your mates or something. I do have a first name, you know."

"I know," said James, quickly. "Okay...Lily."

Harry looked back at his Mum; she was staring at her shoes, blushing and smiling harder than ever. "Okay," she said.

James moved a step closer to her, but slowly, as if he were approaching an animal who was likely to bolt at a sudden movement. "I have a first name too, you know."

Lily looked up, still smiling. This time her eyes were gentle and teasing, and Harry felt a surge of hope on his Dad's behalf. "Really," she said.

"Yes. Oddly enough, it's not 'Potter,'" said James.

Lily regarded him; he stared back. "Okay, James," she said.

James blinked several times, and Harry saw him take a deep breath. The two smiled at one another again, even as the scene around Harry dissolved into whirling colors.

"No..." Harry murmured, trying desperately to hold on to the memory even as it dissolved around him. But they were gone, the way they had been at sixteen...gone. Tears stung Harry's eyes even as the next scene resolved itself around him.

It was dusk on a peaceful summer's evening. Harry was standing in the middle of a small village with winding cobbled streets and houses stuffed here and there as though they had grown up from scattered seeds. Harry revolved on the spot, trying again to figure out where he was. The jagged mountaintops were still visible beyond the roofs of the village, so he couldn't be far from Hogwarts, or at least from that part of the country. The house immediately in front of him was painted a shocking pink, and had about five chimneys coming out of the roof. He glanced up and down the street; all of the houses were equally brightly colored, and had chimneys and aerials sticking out of the roofs at odd angles. One had a live flamingo tethered to a hitching-post by the front walk. Harry smiled; he recognized a wizarding village when he saw one.

Catching movement, Harry turned in time to see a tall figure in a black cloak dart across the street and head for a house at the end of the row: a lavender house with only two chimneys. Recognizing the man's limping gait and red-brown hair, Harry jogged after a much younger Remus Lupin.

Lupin approached the lavender house, slowing as he drew level with the stoop and finally stopping at the foot of the front steps. He stood staring at the door (painted an ugly maroon, with a horrible brass knocker shaped like a pineapple), shuffling his feet and toying with a package he was holding, turning it over and over in his hands. Harry noted that Lupin was looking quite healthy: the full moon must still be weeks away. He was on the point of turning to search the purplish sky for said moon when the door of the lavender house opened.

Harry's mother stood in the doorway, a few years older than when he had last seen her. She wore plain Muggle jeans and what looked like a man's tee shirt; her feet were bare and her red hair was drawn into a long tail. She grinned down at Lupin, who had become very interested in his shuffling feet.

"Are you going to come in, or are you going to stand out there all night?" she said, hands on hips.

Lupin finally looked up. "Yes...I mean, no...I mean, I just wanted to give you...I mean I'm here to deliver..." He held up the small, flat package he was carrying.

Lily rolled her eyes. "He couldn't resist, could he?"

Lupin shook his head.

"All right then, come in and show me what you've got."

Harry followed Lupin into the house and squeezed in as Lily closed the door behind him. They shuffled down the dark front hall and into a cramped kitchen, and the two of them sat down at an ancient-looking wooden table while Harry stood in the doorway. "Tea?" she asked, indicating a kettle warming on the old-fashioned stove in one corner. Harry thought he glimpsed purple flames through the stove's grating, and noticed that the cupboard across the room had opened of its own accord and two mugs were flying out of it toward the table.

"No, that's all right," said Lupin. He still seemed reluctant to meet Lily's eyes.

One of the mugs made a U-turn back to the cupboard; the other fell neatly into Lily's outstretched hand as she pocketed her wand.

Lupin cast a glance around the room. "Where are Alice and Petunia?"

Lily's lips curled at the mention of her sister. "You think Petunia would be caught dead in Hogsmeade village? She won't be here until tomorrow. Alice has just gone out to Rosmerta's to get some...well, some supplies."

"Some supplies of the alcoholic variety, I take it?" This time Lupin did meet her eye, and the two of them grinned at one another. Lily nodded. She jumped up to pour her tea as the kettle whistled, and Lupin frowned after her. "Petunia doesn't want to be with her sister? Not even on the night before your wedding?"

She shook her head. "Are you really surprised? It was hard enough just to convince her to show up tomorrow."

Lupin sighed. "I still find it hard to believe."

"I wouldn't want her here, anyway." Lily sat down opposite Lupin, cradling her mug in two hands. "She never goes anywhere without that beastly Vernon, now."

"Well, he is her husband."

Lily shrugged, and the two of them sat in silence for a minute or two. Then, after sipping at her tea, Lily held out her hand. "All right then, let's see what it is."

Lupin smiled, and handed her the wrapped package. Lily took it with just the tips of her fingers, as though expecting something to jump out of it. She shook it next to her ear, pressed it with her fingers, regarded it while biting her lips.

"I think this one's safe, Lily."

"You'd be cautious too, if the last 'gift' you'd gotten from him had been a packet of stinksap pellets that squirted into your face the moment you opened them."

They both laughed. "Well," said Lupin, as Lily finally began to tear at the paper, "you can't deny James has a sense of humor." Both he and Harry watched curiously as Lily opened the package.

To Harry's surprise (he had been expecting a Zonko's-type prank gift), the gift turned out to be a perfectly harmless 45 record. Lily frowned down at it, then smiled as she read the song's title. "The Beach Boys," she said quietly. " 'God Only Knows.'"

"You like it?" Lupin asked.

"It's one of my favorites." She gazed down at the record for several seconds, then tore off a folded piece of parchment that had been Spellotaped to the cover. Lily unfolded the parchment and a tiny, white flower fell out onto her lap: a flower Harry recognized as one of the kind she had been picking on the Hogwarts lawn, on the windy day of the last memory. Harry crept across the room and looked over her shoulder as she read the note, scrawled in a hand that looked curiously like his own. 'Here's to being who we really are,' the note said.

Lily bit her lip and looked back up at Lupin, who had been watching her silently all the while. "Thanks for bringing this," she said, her voice wavering just a little.

"Yes, well," said Lupin, shuffling his feet again. "James and Sirius didn't seem to require my presence any longer, and..."

"I suppose I should be grateful that Sirius is there, to keep James from bolting," she said, squinting at Lupin and taking another sip of tea.

"Well, he is a bit nervous, I won't deny that. But he's nowhere close to bolting." The two exchanged another smile. "Speaking of such things...how are you feeling, Miss Lily?"

Lily shrugged, and set down her tea. "A little nervous, I suppose." She hesitated, then caught Lupin's eye. "Okay, a lot nervous. But nowhere close to bolting."

"Glad to hear it." Lupin patted her forearm, then drew both of his hands back and began twisting them in his lap.

There were another several minutes of silence, before Lily said, "And how are you doing, Mr. Remus?"

"What? Fine, I'm fine."

"Uh-huh. What's on your mind?" Lily was giving him one of her piercing, green-eyed looks.

"Oh..." Lupin fiddled with the hem of his cloak and looked out the window into the gathering darkness. "Just mourning the loss of a couple of good friends, that's all."

"I hope you're not talking about me and James."

Lupin shrugged, still looking away. "Well, I figured, now that you two will be married..."

"That we wouldn't be your friends any longer?" Lily jabbed him playfully in the arm with her fist, and he smiled cautiously at her. "How old are you, ten? Come on, man. You're an incredibly important friend to both of us."

Lupin shook his head, staring at the floor.

Lily grabbed his chin and made him look her in the eye. "You are. Why do you think we scheduled our wedding for the new moon? So you could be with us. Don't be thick." She let go of his chin and gave him another soft punch in the shoulder.

The two smiled into one another's eyes as this scene, too, dissolved into a whirl of color.

Harry shut his eyes. He wasn't sure he could take another memory; his mind felt full to the brim with the images he'd already seen. Somehow, he wished he weren't seeing such joyous and youthful memories. Somehow, seeing his mother's happiest moments only brought home for him how short her life had been; watching her laugh and joke and flirt made him realize that he, her son, had no idea who she had been or what she had been like. Seeing her, he was forced to look at the huge gulf which was left by her absence in his life.

Steeling himself with the thought that this was the last memory, he opened his eyes.

He was standing in a bright, pale-yellow-painted hospital room, the morning sun streaming through two large windows with gauzy white curtains. Everything was quiet and still. On the bed before him lay his mother, a little older still than when he'd last seen her. She was fast asleep, her face pale, her hair spread out on the white pillowcase.

Frowning in concern, Harry moved toward her. Then he saw his father: James was sitting next to her, in a chair pulled as close to her bed as comfort would allow. But he was not looking at her: he was studying a small, blue-blanketed bundle he held in his arms, a bundle with a shock of messy black hair.

Drawing in a sharp breath, Harry moved closer to James. The child in his arms was sleeping, small eyes scrunched into slits and tiny, pursed lips twitching. The baby's forehead, he noticed, was smooth and unmarked. Harry reached up to his own forehead, touching his scar briefly. Then he tore his gaze away from his infant self to study his father.

James's eyes were shadowed from lack of sleep, and he, too, was very pale. He was also frowning down at baby Harry, biting at his lips and blinking rapidly, as he'd done when Lily had used his name for the first time. He was staring at the baby, as if hoping that the child would speak to him if he waited long enough.

Harry glanced back at his mother, only to find that Lily's eyes were open. She had woken sometime in the last minute, but had not moved or rustled the bedclothes. Her green eyes--Harry's eyes--blinked once, and then focused on the man and baby sitting next to her. Her lips curled into a smile at once.

"There's my boys," she murmured, her voice still cracked and broken with sleep.

James jerked his head up. "You're awake. How are you? Are you okay? Do you need anything? Should I..."

"James," she interrupted. "I haven't died. I've had a baby. Women do it every day."

"But you don't do it every day," he said, frowning and taking one hand off the bundle to smooth her red hair back from her forehead.

Lily shifted in bed a bit, moving tentatively, as though trying to get used to her own body again. She reached up and patiently pushed James's hand back to the bundle in his arms. "I think I'll live," she said. Slowly, wincing, she pulled herself into a sitting position. James watched her carefully. She glanced around the room: several bouquets of flowers decorated various bedside tables and windowsills, and magical greeting cards were jiggling and straining their envelopes in an effort to shout out their congratulations. "What time is it?" she asked, grinning at a particularly colorful one which looked as though it was trying to eat its way through the envelope.

"Seven or so." James smiled; his eyes were back on the baby's face again, studying the child just as carefully as ever. "That's all you could ask last night, too. What time it was."

Lily frowned, also studying the baby's face. Harry moved closer to the three of them. "Well, it was important, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"What time was he...I wasn't really paying attention when...and then they gave me the sleeping-draught, and..."

"It was before midnight," James said. "He was born just before midnight. July 31."

The sleeping infant screwed up his wrinkled face and let out a long moan; he began wriggling, his eyes still closed, and Lily held out her arms for him, her face blossoming into a smile, the color flooding back into her cheeks. James stood up and, rather awkwardly, placed the baby in her arms.

Harry felt pleasantly warm and shivery, standing there watching his mother hold him for the first time. He watched as she traced a fingertip over his delicate infant's skull with its thatch of black hair, down his scrunched-up face and under his pointed chin. Just like her chin, he realized. He reached up and touched the tip of his own chin, as his mother stroked the baby's chin.

"Born as the seventh month dies..." Lily murmured. She was frowning down at her son.

"We still don't know it's definitely him," James said. "It could be Frank and Alice's son. Or anyone, really..."

Lily looked up and caught her husband's eye. He fell silent. The two of them regarded the child, now sleeping soundly again. James laid one elbow on the bed and leaned his chin into his palm. There was silence in the little room for several minutes, during which the Harry who had just come of age rubbed several tears he could not remember shedding off of his face. His infant self finally woke again, opening and closing his tiny fists, clutching at the blue blanket, and pursing his lips.

"I think he's hungry," James said, but Harry could barely hear him. Looking up, he saw tears shining on his father's face, as well. Lily saw the same thing; she reached up and brushed the tears away with the same hand she had used to caress the face of her sleeping son. James caught at her hand and brought her fingertips to his lips, kissing them softly. Harry's heart lurched. "You're amazing, you know," said James.

"So is he," Lily murmured, looking down at the baby. James nodded. "And one thing is certain, in all of this," she said. She sat up a bit straighter, not wincing at the movement this time, and her voice was stronger, suddenly. She sounded like the old Lily. "No matter what this little boy has to face in his life, he will always have us."

Harry let out a small sob, covering his mouth with his hand. Trembling, he pushed off from the floor and rose up through the icy blackness again, leaving the memories behind.


End file.
